Cryptocoin Mining?

[michal1980]

Best per slot = 7970 @ $400
Best value per slot = 7950 @ $300
Best per watt, ignoring slots = 7790 @ $130

The 7850 is also a decent contender at somewhere between 300-350mhash.

Also, keep in mind that two cards in the same machine will generally not do 200% of the one card hash rate, assuming that you care about heat and card life. There's just more heat that you have to deal with. If they are not in a case and even better, on risers, then you can do 200%. But realistically, the top card (or both cards) will have to be detuned a little to maintain anywhere near the same temps as the single card setup. I haven't run a dual 7790 setup, but I imagine that the temps there are much better than a dual 7950/7970 setup (but the hash rate is much lower too!).

Thank you.

One last question, because the 7790 is newer.

would 2x7790 = 1x7950?

 

[Binky]

A 7790 should be around 300mhash, a 7950 around 550, and a 7970 around 650. So the dual 7790s may be between a 7950 and 7970 on paper, but how that works out in a dual situation (two card, more heat, top card is cooking in the heat from the bottom card) is not known to me.

 

[michal1980]

A 7790 should be around 300mhash, a 7950 around 550, and a 7970 around 650. So the dual 7790s may be between a 7950 and 7970 on paper, but how that works out in a dual situation (two card, more heat, top card is cooking in the heat from the bottom card) is not known to me.

Thanks again.

 

[canadiantrex]

What temps do ya'll keep your house (apartment, condo) at that you're running hot with multiple cards in a case?

I have a 7850 and 7870 in an el cheapo case from CompUSA. Water cooled 8320 with radiator venting out the top back, one 120mm venting out the top, one 120mm blowing in on the front and one 120mm blowing in on the side.

The 7850 (Sapphire) is running 1200 core 1050 memory at 1.155 volts, about 50ish percent on the fans and stays between 66* and 68* celsius. The 7870 (MSI Twin Frozr) is on top, clocked at 1150 core and 1000 memory at an unknown voltage (Trixx set to 1.175 but GPU-Z bounces all over the place the voltage monitor) and it runs between 67* and 70*. Fan profiles are left on stock settings.

I keep the thermostat set on 72*F, but the PC is in the bedroom which is on the last air vent in the A/C system, so it's usually about 80* in the bedroom.

Side note, anyone know why Trixx won't let me set memory speeds less than 150mhz below core speed?

 

[SPBHM]

Side note, anyone know why Trixx won't let me set memory speeds less than 150mhz below core speed?

I was able to set 800 for the core and 300 for the memory on trixx, but originally the limit was around 560MHz for the memory, what I did was, open another program (msi afterburner) and lower the memory to 560MHz (limit also on afterburner) after that open trixx, the limit is going to be a lot lower, so I was able to set 300

there is probably a better way of unlocking the limit, but it worked well and it was easy and quick to do.

 

[canadiantrex]

I was able to set 800 for the core and 300 for the memory on trixx, but originally the limit was around 560MHz for the memory, what I did was, open another program (msi afterburner) and lower the memory to 560MHz (limit also on afterburner) after that open trixx, the limit is going to be a lot lower, so I was able to set 300

there is probably a better way of unlocking the limit, but it worked well and it was easy and quick to do.

Odd. Anytime I try to set the memory speed more than 150Mhz below core, it displays it properly in Trixx, but on GPU-Z, the card reverts back to factory memory speeds.

I have Afterburner installed, I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Though I'm not sure if opening Afterburner will give me issues with the 7850's core speed. There was a limit in Afterburner of either 1050 or 1100 on the core for that GPU, which is why I started using Trixx.

 

[SPBHM]

Odd. Anytime I try to set the memory speed more than 150Mhz below core, it displays it properly in Trixx, but on GPU-Z, the card reverts back to factory memory speeds.

I have Afterburner installed, I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Though I'm not sure if opening Afterburner will give me issues with the 7850's core speed. There was a limit in Afterburner of either 1050 or 1100 on the core for that GPU, which is why I started using Trixx.

ahh OK, I'm using an older card (5850) and whatever I set on Trixx works (verified on any other software like GPUz and power usage), my problem was specifically the software not allowing me to set the slider lower than a certain percentage bellow the "stock" clock, and I simply used the other software to basically use a lower clock as the "stock" clock, thus making trixx accept something lower than what previously was possible...

 

[MrK6]

Use Afterburner + unofficial overclocking modes.

 

[Kenmitch]

Yeah, I was thinking it might be a driver issue. Problem is there's only one set of working drivers for the 7790 - the "12.10 7790 performance drivers" that ship with the card. Hopefully they get it sorted by the next WHQL release, which should hopefully also include full support for Bonaire.

In the mean time, I guess I'll just use Chrome. Firefox is the only program that gives me trouble that I've found so far.

The card mined all night at 1200MHz and averaged 300mhash, so I know it's working fine otherwise.

They did release a new set of drivers for the 7790 a couple days ago.

12.101.2.1

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/RadeonHD7790CatalystPerformanceDriver.aspx

Somebody hacked the inf file if others want to try them. Not sure what was changed but my Heaven score stayed the same. Tomb Raider looked to be a little bit smoother on my 7870 tho.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=377386

Some claim a 15fps gain but could be a placebo effect.

 

[Rikard]

Seeing how the difficulty has increased of BTC mining, almost 100% per month lately, I wonder how long GPU mining will be profitable. If one assumes that the difficulty doubles every month I will start losing money at the end of July.

With the Avalon ASICs already shipping, maybe the difficulty will increase even more than 100% per month? Since people buy them for mining, if we have information on how many are sold and shipped it should be fairly easy to calculate how the difficulty will change, wouldn't it? That will set the date when GPU mining died.

People not willing to enter the ASICS arms race will/are already switch to LTC minining so difficulty of alt currencies will also increase. :'( Conclusion: I would not buy a card for mining today.

 

[Chiropteran]

Seeing how the difficulty has increased of BTC mining, almost 100% per month lately, I wonder how long GPU mining will be profitable. If one assumes that the difficulty doubles every month I will start losing money at the end of July.

That is a slight exaggeration. Difficulty has increased by 100% from January to today, not 100% per month.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmcTCtjBoRWUdHVRMHpqWUJValI1RlZiaEtCT1RrQmc#gid=0

For example, from Mar 1st to the latest difficulty change on Apr 7, difficulty has increased by a total of 69%. It is increasing fast, absolutely, but certainly not by 100% per month.

I think the turning point will be shortly after BFL starts shipping to regular users. I think difficulty will start increasing much faster at that point, and it seems like they might start shipping in the next week or two. Of course, for the past year it's been "just another week" so who knows if they really do start shipping.

I agree that buying cards exclusively for mining is probably a bad idea now, but the existence of litecoin can mitigate the issues ASIC bring. If you plan to switch to litecoin, buying video cards to mine today might not be such a bad idea, because ASIC can't mine litecoin.

 

[TheUnk]

The ASICs are coming, the ASICs are coming! lol..

And when they do come, all the GPU miners will either jump ship to Litecoin, or quit altogether.

I wonder when/if that happens how the exchange of LTC to BTC will be. Right now you can mine either and the profit is very similar.

 

[markyh]

Seeing how the difficulty has increased of BTC mining, almost 100% per month lately, I wonder how long GPU mining will be profitable. If one assumes that the difficulty doubles every month I will start losing money at the end of July.

.

In theory the $/BTC and $/LTC prices should rise to balance out the reduced production rate.

$/BTC has risen from what, $15/BTC in January to $115 today. That's almost a 8 x increase in price for not a 8 x increase if difficulty / extraction rate!

This is why since Avalon ASIC shipped waiting BFL customers are going mental!!

As for Litecoin, when I started a few weeks ago the extraction rate was over 2 coins a day on a single 7950.

today extraction rate has dropped to 1.62, by wednesday it will drop to 1.29 a day. However in the last few weeks the daily profit from 1 x 7950 has remain quite stable in the $2.50 - $3.00 per day profit range.

Once difficulty reaches 606 in less than two weeks a single 7950 will be down to 1 LTC a day. However I expect the price to be in the $3.75 to $4.25 range to still give a $2.50-$3.00 daily profit.

For this to happen either the BTC price has to rise $175 at current BTC/LTC rates or LTC has to rise in value vs BTC around 0.035.

M

 

[markyh]

The ASICs are coming, the ASICs are coming! lol..

.

First BFL Jalepenos have been shipped to Bitcoin Journalists. 5G/h @ 30 watts.

Youtube video review here, this was Saturday 20/4/13:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6mmTRheUzg

Now some predictions. Lets say those that ordered last year receive theirs 1st JUNE and if you order two of these now for $600 with shipping to give 10g/h for 65watts you will receive them on 1st of August.

I guess at a minimum the network hashrate and thus difficulty to double by 1st August to 17948592. I then guess that from that point on it will at least grow by 20% a month for a year, meaning a other doubling by January 2014, then double again my June 2014.

Can you make money with this unit? Well yes. There actually is a Calculator that can work this out. This will assume 24/7 mining but for a small dedicated units why wouldn't you mine 24/7?

So here's the calculator,

https://bitclockers.com/calc

heres the figures (for me in the UK at least).

hash rate (2 x Jalapenos) 10000 m/hs (10G/hs)

Watts used : 70 (30 x 2 + 10 watts just because)

cost per kwh : 0.18 USD (12p in the UK)

Cost of hardware : 600 USD ( with shipping)

timeframe : 90 days

Value of BTC : $100 (assuming this is a 12 month average with no big rise or falls as we have had the last month)

Bitcoin difficulty: 17948592 (This is double where it is today, a guess to where it will be in 2 months time)

Difficulty change % per month : 20 (this will give a doubling of difficulty every 5 months as more ASIC miners come online)

BTC per Block : 25 ( I have no idea when it will next halve to 12.5??)


Financials profits in the first year if all this remains true :

24 hrs : $27.72

1 months : $831.52

90 days : $2085.81

1 year : $4358.34

Hardware investment will repay itself in 3 weeks a 1 day.

I have not looked out any further than 1 year because I have now idea when the BTC block reward rate is next due to halve?

Seems an interesting punt to order now; If they where arriving at the 2012 customers now I would place an order; the really hard bit is will they ship soon and if you order now will it be 6 months or a year until you take delivery and not 2 months?

Anyway some figures on forum now to look back too in 6 months time and compare. Think I have set some tough but realistic predictions here.

M

 

[Qianglong]

What do you guys use to mine litecoins? I tried CGminer but I am only getting a hash rate of 70 KH/s @_@ and that is with proper config for my 7970s... any guide and tips will be greatly appreciated and how can I config CGminer for multiple GPUs in a system?

 

[markyh]

What do you guys use to mine litecoins? I tried CGminer but I am only getting a hash rate of 70 KH/s @_@ and that is with proper config for my 7970s... any guide and tips will be greatly appreciated and how can I config CGminer for multiple GPUs in a system?

latest version of GUIminer-scrypt, I use the 7950 (high) presets and get 625k/hs from my MSI 7950 @ 280 watts.

M

 

[chimaxi83]

latest version of GUIminer-scrypt, I use the 7950 (high) presets and get 625k/hs from my MSI 7950 @ 280 watts.

M

What clock speeds are you using?

 

[markyh]

What clock speeds are you using?

1050 core, 1575 memory, lowest vcore I can get stable at, 1038mv.

M

 

[Batmeat]

A 7790 should be around 300mhash, a 7950 around 550, and a 7970 around 650. So the dual 7790s may be between a 7950 and 7970 on paper, but how that works out in a dual situation (two card, more heat, top card is cooking in the heat from the bottom card) is not known to me.

Can't get my 7950 past 450. Of course I haven't found a way to overclock it yet either.

 

[Zargon]

latest version of GUIminer-scrypt, I use the 7950 (high) presets and get 625k/hs from my MSI 7950 @ 280 watts.

M

Damn I need to swap to that. Though myiner with 2x wf3s is doing 1.1 ghs pulling 580w from wall

 

[BallaTheFeared]

1050 core, 1575 memory, lowest vcore I can get stable at, 1038mv.

M

Whew, I'm doing it wrong.


1225/1700 gives me 690 khash/s


Power draw is showing nearly 400w at the wall :|


Edit: Ha, never seen this card work so hard.

Since the cpu is basically near idle which should be somewhere around 65-75w with the current settings (including gpu idle) then the GPU has to be using upward of 300w!!!!


74% fan speed @ 74C

Crazy!

 

[markyh]

Whew, I'm doing it wrong.


1225/1700 gives me 690 khash/s


Power draw is showing nearly 400w at the wall :|


Edit: Ha, never seen this card work so hard.

Since the cpu is basically near idle which should be somewhere around 65-75w with the current settings (including gpu idle) then the GPU has to be using upward of 300w!!!!


74% fan speed @ 74C

Crazy!

You need to lower youe vcore voltage using MSI afterburner by forcing constant voltage------------afterburner---settings----force constant voltage.

Try setting 1100mv first and if stable lower 10mv at a time until the card locks the drivers and auto recovers. Then go back up 10 and decrease 1mv at a time until you get a stable.

You could also try reducing the GPU core speed to after that too to see how far you can go to and still pull a high k/hash.

It's a lot more fiddly with Litecoin vs bitcoin as you need the memory maxed out and not undervolted but you also need to find that balance betwwen memory speed, core speed and core voltage that gives the highest k/hash per watt drawn at the plug.

Took me 2 days to settle my 7950 @ 1050 core, 1575 memory and 1038mv, But now it is rock solid 24/7 pulling 625-631 k/hsh on a stratum pool pulling a steady 280 watts for the rig excluding monitor which autoshuts off after 10 mins to save power.

M

 

[chimaxi83]

Whew, I'm doing it wrong.


1225/1700 gives me 690 khash/s


Power draw is showing nearly 400w at the wall :|


Edit: Ha, never seen this card work so hard.

Since the cpu is basically near idle which should be somewhere around 65-75w with the current settings (including gpu idle) then the GPU has to be using upward of 300w!!!!


74% fan speed @ 74C

Crazy!

Sounds like you need to find a balance, because high clock speeds with corresponding over voltage drawing some power isn't a surprise.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Seemed to work against me actually, my actual khash dropped off on the website tracker.

Changed a few settings, dropped power reading at the wall to 330w~ khash dropped to 500, but according to the website it's going back up.. was as low as 77 khash and my payouts were showing it... which is weird!)...

/clueless

Also 300w on air, as some, good one

Some powa to get my vrams up to 97C! VS 72C~ at 330w..

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Think I'll pop my card?